Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Milk demo

"Brussels (12/07/10): Over one thousand milk producers from many European countries demonstrate in Brussels today against the proposals of the HLGM trying to avoid that they will influence the reform of the dairy market significantly. „These proposals do not yield a solution for the current crisis and will worsen the situation of European milk producers even further.” says Lidia Senra, board member of ECVC. Romuald Schaber, president of the EMB, adds: “The report says that the existing safety net was sufficient. That is, however, not true. The extremely low prices that we saw in 2009 can reoccur anytime and the existing measures cannot prevent it.”

Another problem is the contractualisation - i.e. direct contracts between producers and dairies- that the HLGM has proposed. These contracts would lead the producers to be total dependent on the dairy industry, who, as stronger market player, would dictate the conditions."

This is why the contract farming projects put forward by development organizations and the UN for the milk sector in Lebanon fails to improve small farmers livelihood: it plays them directly into the hands of a few large buyers who control the prices. The problem is with capitalist markets, again.